


Violets, Yellow Day-Lily, Snowdrop

by noun



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Clothes Porn, Corsetry, F/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:55:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22641415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noun/pseuds/noun
Summary: “Just give it a good tug,” Evie said encouragingly, and tried not to regret turning down Mrs. Disraeli’s offer of a lady’s maid.“Miss Frye,” Henry started, and Evie tried not to think poorly of him for it, knowing her short temper was all stress. Being pressed into service wasn’t really fair to him. At least he hadn’t shied away from helping her—she wasn’t Jacob, to be so liberal with his application ofeverything is permitted. He was sensible, Henry Green, and respectful, thoughtful and clever, and patient enough to press flowers and resist the urge to check if they had dried too soon and ruin the whole process.It was just that he was, apparently, too afraid of hurting her to help her tie her corset.
Relationships: Evie Frye/Henry Green | Jayadeep Mir
Comments: 5
Kudos: 48
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	Violets, Yellow Day-Lily, Snowdrop

**Author's Note:**

  * For [echoslam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/echoslam/gifts).



“Just give it a good tug,” Evie said encouragingly, and tried not to regret turning down Mrs. Disraeli’s offer of a lady’s maid.

“Miss Frye,” Henry started, and Evie tried not to think poorly of him for it, knowing her short temper was all stress. Being pressed into service wasn’t really fair to him. At least he hadn’t shied away from helping her—she wasn’t Jacob, to be so liberal with his application of _everything is permitted_. He was sensible, Henry Green, and respectful, thoughtful and clever, and patient enough to press flowers and resist the urge to check if they had dried too soon and ruin the whole process.

It was just that he was, apparently, too afraid of hurting her to help her tie her corset.

“Really, Mr. Green,” she said. Evie exhaled the breath she’d been holding, and turned around to face him. The laces slipped out of his fingers. “It’s fitted—you won’t strangle me.”

She turned to face forward once more, and pulled the busk to make sure it was properly centered. Evie inhaled, holding her stomach taunt, and, to her great relief, Henry yanked the cords, cinching the corset closed, then began to work the excess down from the top before he tied them off nice and tight. Evie relaxed, and tested the fit, seeing how far she was able to bend, that she was able to breathe, and turned back around.

Henry stepped back, giving her the space to stride back over to the pile of fabric that would resolve itself into an outfit suitable for the ball. “You wear that every day?” he asked.

“This?” she asked, and rapped on the hard shell of the corset. “No. I’m afraid I shouldn’t be able to climb or fight at all in it—though the boning might deflect a blow.”

Something to think on, certainly.

She was not so bold as to actually _show_ him what she had been wearing—something tight in her chest about offering him so intimate an item, still warm from close contact with her skin, never mind the Creed. A woman was allowed her privacy. Again, Jacob: he was the libertine.

“It is quite the antique, I fear,” she admitted, dropping the cage crinoline on the floor. She stepped into the hoops, and lifted them to die around her waist. “It stops here—I know it was popular in my mother’s time.”

She tapped her chest a few finger-lengths below her bust. It was also entirely possible to dress without any aid at all, which she liked. It wasn’t as if Jacob would give her a helping hand.

“Will you help me with the petticoats—no, that one,” she said, pointing to the corded white one. “Over my head—it buttons in the back.”

Patient, she tucked in her arms and waited for Henry to drop the fabric around her shoulders.

His hands rested on her waist as he pulled the band into place, and then did the small button. She did not even ask; he pulled the hem down over the edge of the cage, bending his knees so he might fluff them out.

“The next,” Evie said, and Henry obligingly took the second, and one more helped her draw it over her head, and button it at the waist.

“I did not think you wore gowns that often, Miss Frye,” Henry said. Evie bounced on the balls of her feet, making sure the petticoats had fallen properly.

“I did,” she said, half-distracted. “When I still lived with my grandmother and father in Crawley. Nothing like this. I had my day clothes, and then my training clothes—and then my robes, of course, once I was older. But since coming to London, I have kept to my robes. Anything else would be impractical.”

She smoothed her hands down the front of her corset, and then glanced at her empty wrist. She had grown so accustomed to the weight of the blade that it felt more foreign to be without it. When she looked up, she caught Henry watching her.

“And now the dress?” Henry asked. “Or am I forgetting the next step?”

Evie smiled. “Yes, now the dress. Please.”

It was no Worth gown, but Mrs. Disraeli’s maid had done good work altering it so quickly, and Mrs. Disraeli was very generous to have offered it in the first place. Evie held very still while Henry slid it over her head and dropped the heavy skirts down. With such small sleeves, it wasn’t much of a fight to get her hands through, and Henry did up the hook and eye closures on the back quickly. Evie checked the fit of the bust, wiggling—and then gave up and adjusted herself by hand, slipping fingers into the cup of the corset. She tied the neckline tight, bounced again on her toes—and caught Henry staring again.

“Mr. Green,” she said, near teasing. He quickly glanced to the side, to the floor, to anything but her.

If half her head wasn’t taken up with anger at Jacob for being so—so himself, and the other half all fear at Starrick’s plans for the Queen and the country, she might have taken more time to appreciate the color in his cheeks, his gentleness and steady hands during the whole of this ordeal.

“You look lovely, Miss Frye,” he said, and there was no flatter in his soft voice, only earnestness.

She was more than likely blushing herself—no better way to explain the heat in her cheeks, and she turned away. “Gloves,” she said, “—and the Key, do you have it?”

He touched her wrist, and offered her both the gloves. Evie did not so much as put them on as shove her hands into them, and she was clumsy with the small buttons on the wrist. But then Henry was there, and he was steady and careful with them, one hand holding her own steady, the other gently sliding the buttons into the small loops, no buttonhook needed.

“The Key,” she said again. Her voice was too breathy to her own ear.

Henry pulled it out of his pocket, and laid it around her neck, fastening it.

“There you are, Miss Frye.”

They were terribly close, toe-to-toe, the bulk of her skirts pressing against his trousers. She was about to go off and fight Starrick, and end him—or fail and die. There were no other options. Personal feelings could not compromise the mission. And yet she still longed, however foolishly, for something more.

“Be careful,” she said, very softly. Henry only smiled, and stepped back.

“I will be on the ground of the palace,” he said. “Are you putting your robes in the bag Constable Abberline is smuggling in for you? Will you need help undressing—”

He stopped, caught in his own fumble, looking at anything but Evie. “That is, will you need me to—”

“I will be fine, Mr. Green,” she said, but she took his hand, and gave it a squeeze.

“It is a shame you are not coming to the ball,” she said. “I think a sprig of snowdrop in your buttonhole would be very fine.”


End file.
